VIENNA ― The West is now living in Putin’s world. It is there not because Putin is right, or even because he is stronger, but because he is taking the initiative. Putin is “wild” while the West is “wary.” While European and American leaders recognize that the world order is undergoing a dramatic change, they cannot quite grasp it. They remain overwhelmed by Putin’s transformation from CEO of Russia, Inc., into an ideology-fueled national leader who will stop at nothing to restore his country’s i

It’s great that China’s President Xi Jinping is pouncing on ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang. By seizing assets worth an estimated $14.5 billion and launching the biggest corruption probe in modern history, Xi is showing he’s serious about curbing the excesses imperiling China’s future. Right?That’s one possible upshot of the Reuters scoop sending shockwaves through Beijing. The other: It’s politics as usual, retribution against a man who irked the establishment by opposing last year’s takedown o

Many are pondering who to place their hopes in for a better Indonesia at the upcoming polls. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s recently nominated Jakarta Gov. Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as its presidential candidate. All assumptions about him must still be tested until a leader is elected.Those who criticize the nomination argue Jokowi should finish his term as governor before taking on the more difficult and challenging task of the presidency. Many say Jokowi is simply benefiting from his

Myanmar’s government claims its first national census in three decades will bring about reconciliation in a country rife with religious and ethnic tensions. But the survey, which began on Sunday, appears more likely to intensify the divisions among communities.Conducting a census is a normal process for any government. It provides vital demographic information on the size of the population, its different ethnic and religious groups, how they live and how well they live. States routinely use this

China’s diplomats have every reason to feel satisfied with their handling of the Ukraine crisis.On the one hand, China expressed its support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, an implicit rebuke to Russia, which seized Ukraine’s Crimea region.But at the same time, Beijing has abstained from all anti-Russian votes at the United Nations, and let it be known that it won’t be supporting anti-Russian sanctions.Beijing’s determination to have its cake and eat it, to be caught neither on Russia’s sid

The Census Bureau reported last week that the financial crisis, aside from wrecking the economy, also helped drive down U.S. fertility rates to levels not seen since the late 1990s. The number of births for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 has dropped, to 62.7 in 2013 from 69.3 in 2007.No shock there. Historical demographers have long recognized that when it comes to fertility, recessions are the equivalent of a cold shower.The best evidence for this comes from the mother of all financial crises:

NEW YORK ― Western feminism has made some memorable theoretical mistakes; a major one is the frequent assumption that, if women held the decision-making power in society, they would be “kinder and gentler” (a phrase devised for George H.W. Bush in 1988 to appeal to the female vote). Indeed, so-called “second-wave” feminist theory abounds in assertions that war, racism, love of hierarchy, and general repressiveness belong to “patriarchy”; women’s leadership, by contrast, would naturally create a

To paraphrase an observation attributed to the late Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, people are entitled to their own opinions, not to their own facts. But on some politically charged issues, people’s ideological commitments sometimes settle their judgments about questions of fact.A revealing body of research, coming largely from Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan, finds that “cultural cognition” shapes our reactions to science ― and that our values affect our assessment of purely factual claims, ev

Taiwan’s Ma Ying-jeou is learning a very valuable lesson the hard way: If you want to cozy up to China, it’s best not to be too Chinese about it.The point is being driven home by hundreds of thousands of student protesters, enraged by the Taiwanese president’s attempt to enact a trade pact with China in the dark of night. The deal to open up the island’s service industries is controversial enough. But when Ma reneged on a promise to allow a clause-by-clause review before implementing it, he infu

Russian troops are massing menacingly on Ukraine’s eastern border. The civil war in Syria is still raging, and 33,000 American troops fight on in Afghanistan. So where is Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel headed this week? To Hawaii ― for a meeting with defense ministers from Asia, the region the Obama administration still considers its top foreign policy priority.“Asia is one of the great success stories of the world,” Hagel told me in an interview in his Pentagon office last week. “There is really

Two questions: Why doesn’t our nation have more passenger trains? And does the younger generation’s declining interest in driving imply an opening for the expansion of public high-speed rail?Last May the New York Times reported that all of us, and especially the so-called millennials, are driving less. The Times cites a report from U.S. Pirg, a nonprofit advocacy organization, that documents a 6-decade increase in distance driven per capita, and then a surprising 8-year decline in total distance